Jay Weaver
Miami Herald (TNS)
For more than 40 years, Eston “Dusty” Melton III has cut a high profile as a savvy lobbyist who has helped blue-chip clients with their government issues through his close contacts at Miami-Dade County Hall and in other municipalities.
But the past has caught up with the 70-year-old mover and shaker.
He’s in big trouble with the IRS.
Between 2005 and 2014, Melton filed accurate income tax returns with the Treasury Department — but he didn’t pay his taxes totaling $1,313,840 to the U.S. government. He was formally charged on Thursday in West Palm Beach federal court with attempting to evade and defeat his taxes.
He pleaded not guilty and was granted a nominal bond. But he plans to plead guilty in the coming weeks to that offense, a felony that could send him to prison for at least two years.
Although Melton says he has paid back more than half of that money since selling his Coconut Grove home in April 2018, he still owes the U.S. government about $626,000 in taxes from his income over a decade as the owner of Global Projects, Inc.
Melton: Paid family debts first
During an interview with the Miami Herald on Monday, Melton appeared remorseful while taking full responsibility for his misconduct, recounting how he chose to pay family debts, including substantial college tuition payments for his four children, instead of his taxes to the IRS.
“Looking back, there is no excuse for failing to take my tax obligation as seriously as I should have,” Melton told the Herald. “It is not in my nature to cheat the federal government, to cheat anyone, and I am absolutely mortified that I did so.”
Melton, who graduated from the University of Virginia before joining the Miami Herald as a government reporter in the 1970s, detoured into the lobbying profession in 1982 when he was hired by mega-county lobbyist Steve Ross, whose political connections were legend. When Ross died 13 years later, Melton acquired his late partner’s lucrative lobbying business. The clients continued to roll in, and so did the income.
But starting in 2005, Melton admitted that he stopped paying his taxes for a full decade — despite filing complete annual returns to the IRS.
“The simple reason that I did not pay all my taxes in those years is because I put my family obligations first, as a father and a husband … and that left virtually nothing to pay my income taxes,” Melton said. “That was the choice I made, and it was the wrong choice.”
He said that among about $2.5 million in personal expenses were: alimony payments to his ex-wife, child support for his three children from that marriage, college tuition for those children and an adopted son, and legal fees for defending the adopted son, Mario Melton, who was sentenced to 2-1/2 years in prison after being convicted in a 2016 Miami federal trial of importing the club drug “Molly” from China.
Files Chapter 11 to protect Grove home
As he paid off his family debts, Melton said he feared he was going to lose his home at 3430 Poinciana Ave. in Coconut Grove. IRS tax liens piled up. He had only paid off $62,100 of his tax bill, according to court records.
To avoid losing his home, Melton filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2017. Under Chapter 11, creditors, including the IRS, cannot take your primary residence to satisfy debts.
In 2018, he sold the home for $1.358 million, according to county records. Most of that money was spent on his family debts, but Melton also said he made a payment of $553,093 toward his tax obligation to the IRS.
Melton said that since 2014, he has made annual tax payments based on 30% of his income through 2023 — but he admitted that he’s never been up able to catch up with his tax debts, saying “the amount was so vast that the concept of paying it was unfathomable.”
In a charging document, federal prosecutor Marc Osborne said that Melton “did willfully attempt to evade and defeat the payment of a substantial part of the income tax due and owing by him to the United States for calendar years 2005 through 2014.”
Feds: Transferred assets, money to his wife
Osborne said Melton attempted to carry out this evasion by placing some of his income and assets in the names of two other people, including his wife, Mabelys. He accused Melton of withdrawing cash from the bank account of his lobbying company, Global Projects, and giving it to his wife, who then deposited it in her account. He also transferred titles of his life insurance policies and cars to her, according to the charging document.
Osborne said Melton reduced his salary from Global Projects and instead compensated his wife, although Melton “continued to provide all or almost all the services to [the lobbying firm’s] clients.”
Also, the prosecutor said Melton got his clients at Global Projects to pay their fees to another lobbying company, Gryphon Partners, Inc., which was established in 2017 with his wife, Mabelys, as the owner.
The following year, Melton became the registered agent of Gryphon Partners. Again, Osborne said, Melton provided almost all of Gryphon Partners’ services to its clients, yet he was paid “very limited compensation.”
“Gryphon Partners paid almost all compensation to” Mabelys, who is identified as “Individual 2” in the charging document.
Questions over home purchase in West Palm
According to the document, Melton “aided” his wife in purchasing a home in West Palm Beach in November 2018. She took title of the property solely in her name, although “two thirds of the cash to close was paid with proceeds of Global Projects and Gryphon Partners.”
Melton said he was unable to buy the home in West Palm Beach after selling his home in Coconut Grove because almost all of the proceeds went to paying off his debts and part of the IRS tax obligation. He said he moved the income from Gryphon Partners to his wife “to help Mabel buy the home.”
Both Melton and his wife, who once worked as a secretary at Miami-Dade County Hall, are registered as lobbyists with the county. Together, records show, their clients include AvMed, the University of Miami, Covanta Dade Renewable Energy, Inc., Goodwill Industries of South Florida, Inc., Restore Miami Marine Stadium, Inc. and Super Yellow Cab.
©2025 Miami Herald. Visit miamiherald.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
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Tags: Taxes